Posted on 03/09/2006 4:57:11 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Bird Flu Could Reach Americas in 6 Months
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 27 minutes ago
The virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu could reach the Americas in six to 12 months or even sooner as infected wild birds migrate toward the Arctic and Alaska, the U.N. bird flu chief said.
Migratory patterns will probably take birds carrying the virus from West Africa to the Arctic and Alaska this spring, Dr. David Nabarro said Wednesday. Some infected birds will then likely move south in the fall on a migratory route to the Americas.
"I think it's within the next six to 12 months," Nabarro told a news conference, "And who knows — we've been wrong on other things, it may be earlier."
The H5N1 strain has spread rapidly through Asia and Europe and recently reached Africa, devastating poultry stocks. Virtually all people who have gotten bird flu have had close contact with infected poultry.
Human cases are uncommon, but scientists worry that the virus may mutate into a form that can pass easily between people and lead to a worldwide flu epidemic.
Nabarro reiterated the World Health Organization's warning that "there will be a pandemic sooner or later" in humans, perhaps due to H5N1, or perhaps another influenza virus, and it could start any time.
"Because it is moving and because we believe wild birds are implicated, predicting where it's going to flare up next is a very tricky thing to do, and being able to know the scale of the flare-up is also quite tricky," Nabarro said.
Nabarro said the United Nations was focusing on controlling the H5N1 strain in domestic poultry through slaughters and vaccinations. The focus at the moment is on Africa, especially West Africa, where 50 percent of people live on less than $1 a day and many families rely on chickens for their livelihoods, he said.
"There is a regional crisis in West Africa," with outbreaks in Nigeria and Niger, Nabarro said. "But we are frankly anticipating that we will find the virus in other West African countries and there is a lot of preparatory work under way."
In Western Europe, several countries have detected H5N1 in dead wild birds, but there have been few cases in domestic and commercial poultry populations, he said.
One or two cats are also reported to have H5N1, and the WHO says more research is needed on transmission to other mammals, he said.
The U.S. government hopes to test 75,000 to 100,000 live or dead birds this year, a significant increase over past years, with the effort focused on Alaska, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture officials.
"Some of the challenges we face now are really quite dramatic and call for a lot of technical expertise," Nabarro said.
For example, the FAO reported in September that wild birds are able to carry the H5N1 strain while remaining asymptomatic, yet swans in Western Europe are dying from the strain and nobody knows why, he said.
Nabarro said an international conference on wild birds will be held in June and will hopefully include the results of research now under way. The next major international review of global bird flu efforts will also be in June, he said.
28 minutes ago (AP)
The H5N1 bird flu virus has been found in a weasel-like mammal called a stone marten, a German laboratory said Thursday, indicating the disease has spread to another animal species.
The Friedrich-Loeffler Institute confirmed the presence of the virus in the marten, a carnivorous mammal with brown fur and a white throat patch. The animal was found sick and apparently dying on the island of Ruegen in northern Germany on March 2.
It was then killed by a government veterinarian, the institute said in a statement.
The deadly strain of bird flu was found in a cat on the same island last month, the first time the virus has been identified in an animal other than a bird in central Europe. Infected cats have since been found in Austria.
"The presence of an H5N1 infection in a second mammalian species is not surprising," Till Backhaus, the regional minister for agriculture, said in a statement. "Cats and martens have a comparable prey spectrum."
Cats are believed to have caught the virus by eating infected birds.
Ping!
And sugarplum faires COULD invade in 6months too
Well, game bird hunting might take a hit when bird flu arrives. If cats can become infected, so can retrievers.
No joke, I bet it does break out in alaska and kills some indians this spring. Spring duck hunting is a holiday in all indian villages, after snaring snowshoes all winter; duck is like thanksgiving to them.
I mentioned it to some of the natives and they didn't buy it. They don't pay much attention to what the feds or what white people tell them anyway.
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